In other words, not only is the concept of Silence a dualistic creation, a thought-construct, but so too is the experience of Silence.

It is vitally important to understand that Silence, or the natural state, can never be experienced. And yet at the same time, it can never cease being experienced. It is something that can never be entered into or departed from.

Watch out now, you're starting to sound like the rest of the fashionable neo-advaitan's. Of course in the final enlightened "stage" there is the total realization that nothing needs to be realized, that the Tao is everything and everywhere (which means that the days of drifting "in and out" of it is done). But you also have to acknowledge the practical division of having this as a mere intellectual understanding in the realms of thought versus realizing this in every cell of your being is an actuality - that is it is a qualitative difference. Do you agree with this or not? I mean, of course the ultimate reality of, let's say, Lao Tzu and a dentist in Anaheim is the same, but the qualitative consequence of realization in terms of "being" is different due to this, in its furthest 'extension', non-intellectual ("mystical") understanding of reality.

The Persian Sufi Abu Yazid captured the paradox well: "This thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, but only seekers find it."

This is what Huang Po is really talking about when he talks about the giving up of concepts. The moment you try to enter into the experience of Silence (or enlightenment), in that very moment you are being fooled by your own conceptualizing mind and you remain trapped in duality.

It is vitally important to understand that Silence, or the natural state, can never be experienced. And yet at the same time, it can never cease being experienced. It is something that can never be entered into or departed from.

As such, there is nothing we can do to enhance (or diminish) the experience of it. There is nothing to clear away, nothing to silence, nothing to stop. This is the essence of wisdom.

So I hope you see the error of saying "It becomes mystical when you enter the whole of yourself into that logic. ", and "I can't say that I have permanently reached that stage yet, although I have my moments", the contradiction of your own world-view when "permanently reaching" or "enter yourself" into something which is there everywhere at all times. You are here contradicting your own critic against what I'm putting across when I'm saying that the "Silence" has to be realized.

You need to stop hiding behind the gray gurus of tiresome and dead competitive intellectual and academic understandings, and face this issue.

When Stephen Hawkins speaks people listen because he is a man of substance--one who holds believable thought! He says that there is no Time or Space in the Black Hole, that a clock would stop in there.

There is no energy in the black hole, there is no beginning and no end, there is not even space in there, it is believable that this is truth.

Hawkins says there is no God, and there never was. I didn't see this part so I can't repeat it.

Ques: Cause and effect is causality, what caused the earth, what are earths effects?

Sphere70 wrote: You need to stop hiding behind the gray gurus of tiresome and dead competitive intellectual and academic understandings, and face this issue.

Ah, you’re a fighter, I’ll give you that. I’m not sure how men like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Huang Po, Diogenes, Lao Tzu, etc, qualify as being “gray", but at least you’re putting up a spirited defense of your views, which is good to see. :)

Sphere70 wrote:

In other words, not only is the concept of Silence a dualistic creation, a thought-construct, but so too is the experience of Silence.

It is vitally important to understand that Silence, or the natural state, can never be experienced. And yet at the same time, it can never cease being experienced. It is something that can never be entered into or departed from.

Watch out now, you're starting to sound like the rest of the fashionable neo-advaitan's. Of course in the final enlightened "stage" there is the total realization that nothing needs to be realized, that the Tao is everything and everywhere (which means that the days of drifting "in and out" of it is done). But you also have to acknowledge the practical division of having this as a mere intellectual understanding in the realms of thought versus realizing this in every cell of your being is an actuality - that is it is a qualitative difference. Do you agree with this or not? I mean, of course the ultimate reality of, let's say, Lao Tzu and a dentist in Anaheim is the same, but the qualitative consequence of realization in terms of "being" is different due to this, in its furthest 'extension', non-intellectual ("mystical") understanding of reality.

Yes, of course, there is a huge difference. In terms of understanding, experiencing the world, levels of sanity, quality of life, etc, there is a massive difference between a Lao Tzu and the average Joe.

What we’re discussing is the means of getting there.

Essentially, the difference between us (and it’s a big one) is that you advocate the indiscriminate silencing of thought, whereas I advocate the more targeted process of eliminating delusion (false thinking, self-deception, etc). Your indiscriminate attitude towards thought is driven by self-deception on your part.

More on this below.

Sphere70 wrote:

This is what Huang Po is really talking about when he talks about the giving up of concepts. The moment you try to enter into the experience of Silence (or enlightenment), in that very moment you are being fooled by your own conceptualizing mind and you remain trapped in duality.

It is vitally important to understand that Silence, or the natural state, can never be experienced. And yet at the same time, it can never cease being experienced. It is something that can never be entered into or departed from. As such, there is nothing we can do to enhance (or diminish) the experience of it. There is nothing to clear away, nothing to silence, nothing to stop. This is the essence of wisdom.

So I hope you see the error of saying "It becomes mystical when you enter the whole of yourself into that logic. ", and "I can't say that I have permanently reached that stage yet, although I have my moments", the contradiction of your own world-view when "permanently reaching" or "enter yourself" into something which is there everywhere at all times. You are here contradicting your own critic against what I'm putting across when I'm saying that the "Silence" has to be realized.

I refer you back to my response to Bobo, particularly the Zennish riddle bit.

What has to be cleared away is the desire to clear things away. To stop fighting what is already here.

David Quinn wrote:The truth of 1+1=2, as conceived in that moment, remains true in all worlds, for all time.

The same is true for the truth that 1+1 is ultimately an illusion. That too is true in all worlds, for all time.

In what way these truths lack boundaries?

David Quinn wrote:It is logical and mystical. The logic comes from the truth that Reality/Tao is utterly everything. It becomes mystical when you enter the whole of yourself into that logic.

If you are not solving the riddle by saying that you can enter the logic but can't enter the truth...Talking about entering contradicts the non-enter bit. You may say that it doesn't contradicts reality, but neither does a square-circle. So can that logic abide by non-contradiction, not with reality but with itself?

David Quinn wrote:The truth of 1+1=2, as conceived in that moment, remains true in all worlds, for all time.

The same is true for the truth that 1+1 is ultimately an illusion. That too is true in all worlds, for all time.

In what way these truths lack boundaries?

The same way that trees lack boundaries. Their boundaries are created by the mind.

Bobo wrote:

David Quinn wrote:It is logical and mystical. The logic comes from the truth that Reality/Tao is utterly everything. It becomes mystical when you enter the whole of yourself into that logic.

If you are not solving the riddle by saying that you can enter the logic but can't enter the truth...Talking about entering contradicts the non-enter bit. You may say that it doesn't contradicts reality, but neither does a square-circle. So can that logic abide by non-contradiction, not with reality but with itself?

It is only an apparent contradiction. It disappears once you see through it.

David Quinn wrote:The same way that trees lack boundaries. Their boundaries are created by the mind.

David Quinn wrote:The understanding of absolute truth can only appear in the mind, while the absolute truth itself necessarily applies everywhere.

I ask about the absolute truth itself, in what way does it lack boundaries?

David Quinn wrote:It is only an apparent contradiction. It disappears once you see through it.

David Quinn wrote:I don't know what planet you are living on, but here on earth I haven't encountered anyone over the age of 50 who is even remotely close to Buddhahood. Most people degenerate into contented animals or hollow shells as they age.

David Quinn wrote:I can't say that I have permanently reached that stage yet, although I have my moments.

Anyway, why is it that "the logic that comes from the truth that Reality/Tao is utterly everything" seems to be difficult to see through? It sounds simple actually.

Dennis: There is still a sense of self.just not a sense of separate self.Living with emptiness grants an environment for self to live in,a spaciosness,a freedom to be.Living with emptiness is a relinquishing of opinion.opinions are barriers to freely responding.

You say that living with emptiness is a relinquishing of opinion, and then, you end your post by saying "looks like we're on the same page Pam." Clearly, that last statement is an opinion, or you would have dropped the preface of doubt "looks like" and instead, would have said "we're on the same page Pam."

Those who know are living who they are. Absoluteness of Self revealed. Acausal or awareness. Those who think they know are dreaming who they are. Duality of self interpreted. Causal awareness.

Donna: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, said the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." - Revelation 1:8

Very wise words! And why the truth of the relationship between the forms of the Lord can never be grasped by the human intellect. And why, while the human intellect is present in one's consciousness, the man of spirit integrity, who acknowledges he knows not the beginning or ending of Life, ceases projecting causes and effects into his consciousness.

How does this man who knows he cannot know THE cause of any form live his life when he no longer projects causes and effects? He lives or is of his Living Word. The Lord calls him or tells him to be patient, therefore, he becomes patience. Become patience, saith the Lord; his Son says, Thy Will be done. The Lord calls him or tells him to be compassionate, so he becomes compassion. Become compassion, saith the Lord; his Son says, Thy Will be done. Absoluteness of Self or Word [same metaphor] Revealed.

Look at this as semi-free form stuff, as I went off on a lot of tangents, with sudden returns to the overall concept. Its pretty fucking disjointed. Food for thought/imagination gone wild.

To quote myself

Time is the same throughout, but to life that has the ability to combine differentiation into things, symbols, it differs by age. As Time expands, the preceding universe recedes into itself, it ages. The smaller a consistent type of form is, such as an atom, the older it is, the more it has receded from the present, where we things of consciousness dwell.

Incidentally, my theory makes the idea of one-mind more feasible than others. Not that I'm at all convinced by its reality. Still I'll use it to draw parallels.

In retaining an attachment to things and concepts, one really has an attachment to the past, rather than being free in the present.

An enlightened person however should be living more in the Now, reacting logically to phenomena. Perhaps there is even a state where correct action/non-action comes seemingly automatically, without having to reason - a state which of course could only be achieved by causing the subconscious mind also to value positively, and thus utilise, reason above emotion.

More on the Now later, but first what is the approximate process required to teach the subconscious to value reason above emotion?

---------Psycho-Neural-Philosophical interlude---------

That would take a reorganisation of the ego program, best achieved by starting from a "clean" state, a stare that should be both obtained by and exist within logical parameters that result from an open minded and determined desire and effort to analyse reality.

Nearly everyone, including myself, are incapable of deconstructing the core of the ego program, the self. Which harks back to this quote:

While Huángbò was an uncompromising and somewhat fearsome Chan teacher, he understood the nature of fear in students when they heard the doctrine of emptiness and the Void: “Those who hasten towards it [the Void] dare not enter, fearing to hurtle down through the void with nothing to cling to or to stay their fall. So they look to the brink and retreat.” [21] He taught that ‘no activity’ was the gateway of his Dharma but that “all who reach this gate fear to enter.” [22] To overcome this fear, one “must enter it with the suddenness of a knife-thrust”

In order to reconstruct the ego program to the extent identified in the quote above would require a ripping out of the centre of the ego program. Everything in the ego program is built around the self - it is its base, the motherlode. To rip out the self would mean the rest of the program would, more often than not, collapse like the old house of cards. The subroutines would still be there though, and the degree of collapse and rebuilding process would be dependent on how sound those subroutines were. It does make sense that one reasons ones way to enlightenment, rather than via other methods that attempt shortcuts that end up with, at best, temporary results.

The process of revaluating each subroutine of one's existing ego program, would require ongoing reflection of how current experiences interact with memories, under the new paradigm of analysing the underlying cause and effect reality of those memories.

The emotions that interweave with determination are deeply intertwined with those of the self. The desire to obtain knowledge and to very highly value reason is an egocentric action in itself.

With philosophical development there is kind of stretching of the ego. One's ego is kinder, gentler, calm in some ways, but when matters of the truth are involved it tightens up and becomes determined. It goes from soft to hard. It would, at last for those seekers of real enlightenment, seem that this stretching is necessary for the ego and the first thing that must break to progress is that.

That is how it seems to me. When someone is too earnest about truth, then I feel that string, that tie to the self, has to go.---------End of Psycho-Neural-philosophical interlude---------

------Sci-fi segment (my theory, tainted with the stain of having to include "one-mind")------

Under my theory, we see things across many time planes at once, time differentiation creates all the properties of things. The Now however is different, it rests above those other time planes both in our consciousness and universally. The now surrounds and is pushing at everything that has ever existed. That makes it directly interconnected, without having any change of form or action -unlike the interconnectedness of things, it is an undivided whole - of a sort that is.

An undivided whole would be instantaneous, however that instantaneousness is prevented by nature of time being a continuum, it never becomes static, so never can be a whole, there can never be "A Now", just the continuing now. My point is that the Now (which to us is current consciousness - information transmission takes time - so we are always not really ever in the now) is a singular plane that is utterly universal, but for a conscious entity, it is always moving away, always pushing the entity away into the past.

What that should mean is that the more one is able to get closer to allowing mind to think in the now, to meditate selflessly, completely detached, the greater the opportunity to connect with every life form presently able to do the same thing. A now would mean almost instant "awareness-communication" to any one, anywhere, making it a One-Mind (though not a one-brain).

We wouldn't merge in any meaningful communicative sense with individuals or aliens for that matter. Such as experience would be like cosmic background noise, except that one could only send or receive communications that could be related to by our brain and memory, and as we are in a near non-conceptual state, the static would be not be analysed, not perceived as static.

The experience would take normal self-consciousness away, as in order to "get close to the now" conceptions would need to go away, replacing it with the holistic awareness available in the now, leaving the brain to communicate directly with the one-mind, almost timelessly. Time would slow for you to your present levels of conceptualisation. Without conceptualisation, without the ego program being active, it would be non-emotional state, but still a state of subtle feeling, the feeling of extended awareness.

Were there any communication then ones most recent conceptual thoughts would be at the forefront, and may be altered in some fashion. Symbolic communication takes real time in your physical brain. Only a few scraps would be written to memory, triggers that would initiate correct thought. Really though, I doubt this is a reality. However, even reporting such as shaman having non-experienced knowledge does produce uncertainty.

As this one-mind experience seems to be a pleasurable one, it is so cherished by those who reckon they've had it in some way or other, one could assume then that those others from all times who achieved the same contact are a jolly bunch.

---umm, stuff. Lost interest in categorising - its freeform. ---

The now-awareness is always there, always available for us to attain. In fact we probably experience it every time we think, though not in any consistent, identifiable way. When we mull over something, just what is it that we instruct our brain to do? Where are the instructions from the frontal lobes to memory - they are not in consciousness, they are just realily accessible by consciousness. We are only aware of something we wish to know, and we concentrate, an act in which we attempt to still the mind and then let things come to us, which means that consciousness itself is actually free from the construct we are seeking, which provides the emptiness in the frontal lobes for the subconscious to fill with the what it considers answers.

When we are emotionalised, the above is not the case. At all times the emotion is within our consciousness, taking up frontal lobe space and preventing a completely free thought stream to enter into it. In these circumstances, the frontal lobes have dirty fuel - its not pure mental petrol, it's full of all these other physical based thought packages that interfere with the pure thought stream.

A retarded mental development (autism for instance) or a burn-out of the ego program due to mental torment may cause non-enlightened people to become closer to the now in strange temporary ways. Idiots savants, born agains, the mad, the drugged (particularly the god drugs like Amanita Muscaria or Ayahuasca) may feel a timelessness and a form of heightened holistic awareness, but it is an conceptualised event, full of images coming from memory.

Something like a coma, or some forms or memory loss, severe autism, near death experiences, would be a case of the ego program having been knocked aside. All of a sudden it is not functioning and is unable to control one's thought processes. Without the ego program there is nothing to drive the body to move. It would be awake dream state, where much self awareness is gone. In sense these people would be living in the now, but it would be totally random, no coherency that would enable proper thoughts to develop, so nothing that would give the ego program an ability to reconnect to the frontal lobes. For some where the program is sound, but disconnected, constant attention can re-link the program, eventually.

On the other side of the scale, we have the problem of infinity. Infinity almost provides an assurance that evolved forms of godliness should exist and exist now. To call an entity a god would mean that they were "timelords", as opposed to the ultra-irrational "creators from nothing" (which is admittedly, I also propose re Time).

Under my theory, where the past is things, as in conglomerates of time of different ages, time travel of a kind would maybe be possible.

Time differentiation creates fundamental units of Information (as in Information Theory, I suppose). Combinations of information are patterns and these combinations themselves become new sets of information that form parts of other larger scale patterns. Patterns provide thingness - an ability to divide phenomena into more things, more information.

If an entity could find a way to splice a copy of the necessary segments of their "thinking brain" via a bio-machinery web, and then via secondary sensory gathering machinery into multiple instances of streams of basic units of information in an order that would enable it to recreate itself elsewhere, then they would be able to observe, at least to some extent, anywhere, any time, within the event horizon in which they themselves are constrained by, by being within a particular "Holistic Information set", aka Universe.

The nature of time ensures that there are an infinity of sub-universes, which become "event horizons".

Time is a continuum, which means it is an unstoppable non-quantified force. I say that time is everything, and is non-quantified, yet at the same time we exist as observers that can only experience quantified phenomena. This can only mean that times rate of expansion is not instantaneous. It is timeless in "being", not in affect. Causality has a reason to exist.

So what is causality?

Being + Differentiation + TimeMemory + Observed Now + Change ConceptualisedPast + Present + FutureLesser + Existing + GreaterOne to Many - Many to One - One to Many

If times expansionary rate was instantaneous, then it would be impossible for any imperfection, and no thing could exist. It wouldn't even be a continuum.

Without that expansionary infinity, then by the very nature of expansion it will expand as in an ever increasing circle of "something", wherein the circumference is the now, and everything within is the past. At this point, an important thing you need to understand is that the past has its own expanding now. The difference is that that now occurs at a lesser point along the continuum of times enlargement, of times continuum of Let There Be More Now. This older-time verus recent-time differential creates dualistic inward - outward growth pressure. It's all internal, the only "outside" is the action of times continuum (not the effect), so to expand something else must be squashed.

So now we have both pressure as in physical forces wanting to expand or contract something else, and we have a speed limit (expansion is not instantaneous). That is a bubble, and what do bubbles do, they explode, and then their previous form and what the form of what they interact with changes, thus changing the whole universe, eventually.

Of course, that is describing it as if it were a first cause, and the universe has grown from there.It is a first cause, but only in the sense of the universe bubble we are within. It is a description of the process of creation of information, not the question of just why would Time be capable of expansion in the first place, where did it come from?

That would be an impossible question that no entity even in the context of an infinity of possible entities could answer. It is just that, and I mean really come on, the way we look at time in the non-conceptual sense - cast aside the measurement - and you should see that we view it experience-wise as if it were time that controls the universe.

Time is a more fundamental concept than any other, too deeply ingrained into how our mind works for us to understand. All our senses determine differences by the use of time intervals. All our thoughts and memories are stored in fashion where flows of X per millisecond, index and prioritise information. For example, the affect of adrenalin is towards one end of the scale, but what about the other pole, which I don’t know, maybe REM sleep might be.

Time is a greater universal singular conceptual connector than any other. Space, as is spatiality, may be more observable, certainly more pronounced in our consciousness, but it relies on thingness for context. It is conceptual event, whereas time is a subconscious event, except where it becomes a thought, and thus a measurement.---

David Quinn wrote:The same way that trees lack boundaries. Their boundaries are created by the mind.

David Quinn wrote:The understanding of absolute truth can only appear in the mind, while the absolute truth itself necessarily applies everywhere.

I ask about the absolute truth itself, in what way does it lack boundaries?

Are you asking why Reality is beginningless and endless? Or why absolute truth necessarily applies everywhere?

Bobo wrote:

David Quinn wrote:It is only an apparent contradiction. It disappears once you see through it.

David Quinn wrote:I don't know what planet you are living on, but here on earth I haven't encountered anyone over the age of 50 who is even remotely close to Buddhahood. Most people degenerate into contented animals or hollow shells as they age.

David Quinn wrote:I can't say that I have permanently reached that stage yet, although I have my moments.

Anyway, why is it that "the logic that comes from the truth that Reality/Tao is utterly everything" seems to be difficult to see through? It sounds simple actually.

It is indeed incredibly simple. The difficulties arise when emotionally we refuse to accept it because of our desire for security, for control, for personal meaning, for the bliss of heaven.

It is this grasping which creates the "paradox" that people see at the heart of this matter.

Conceptual proliferation refers to conceptualization of the world through the use of ever-expanding language and concepts.David's trying to take you another way.To the actual experience of Still Mind.Proliferation stands out clear and obvious to Still Mind as distraction.

Your context shows up to me in this way:

We are like little kids who can't see their parents and want to know who their parents are and speculate who the parents might be.That is the 'unanswered question' we live with and gives rise to proliferation.

You are giving the parent role to TIME.You have substituted God for Time.

Now, Jamesh.Can I enrol you in giving me an account of what it would mean for human being to leave the 'unanswered question' open?

You say that living with emptiness is a relinquishing of opinion, and then, you end your post by saying "looks like we're on the same page Pam." Clearly, that last statement is an opinion, or you would have dropped the preface of doubt "looks like" and instead, would have said "we're on the same page Pam."

Why some absolute truth necessarily applies everywhere and how it lack boundaries.

David Quinn wrote:It is indeed incredibly simple. The difficulties arise when emotionally we refuse to accept it because of our desire for security, for control, for personal meaning, for the bliss of heaven.

It is this grasping which creates the "paradox" that people see at the heart of this matter.

Can you emotionally accept it?You were talking about entering 'wholly' into it, do you see it as a practice?

You say that living with emptiness is a relinquishing of opinion, and then, you end your post by saying "looks like we're on the same page Pam." Clearly, that last statement is an opinion, or you would have dropped the preface of doubt "looks like" and instead, would have said "we're on the same page Pam."

Thanks for humbling me again Pam.I need a Pam Edit function.

:-)

Dennis, you have an open mind, which of my experience, can only take an individual in one direction, and that is, truly beyond opinion into the absoluteness of their relationship with their unconditioned Self.

This is the problem with reasoning that is not purposed wholly to be a purifying fire of one's attachment to their conditioned mind, and instead, is the reasoning of human debate and discussion, or what I call "collective condition[s] management." Where human discussion reasoning is horizontal in direction, exchanging one condition for another condition, purifying reasoning is vertical in direction, burning away one's clinging to any condition. When one is being burned up, they have no choice but to be completely devoted to this purifying fire; ergo, why when someone speaks with me, they wish they had a Pam Edit function.

My sister was visiting with me this past week, and as she is wont to do, was telling me of her absolute desire to go to Africa. There is nothing, she tells me, that she desires more in her life than this one thing, to go to Africa. She does not know why she must go, she simply must go. However, she is attached to her condition of kidney disease and lack of money, which means that she has found reasons, causes, why she cannot make this one burning desire a reality in her life. Reasons she loves to talk about, to discuss, to make the focus of her conversations. Where many are willing to listen to her reasons, her rationales why she cannot go to the land of her greatest desire, I am not willing to listen to these rationales. Either go or let it go is my stance. No discussion allowed, either absolutely accept that you cannot go, thereby dissolving the condition, or absolutely go, thereby dissolving the condition. Talking about life has nothing to do with the living of one's life. She says I drive her crazy, but ask her who in her life lives of their integrity of Word, and she will say "Pam."

The goal, as I comprehend it to be for me, yours to accept or reject for yourself, is to be OPEN, expansive and awake; to be wholly free of conditions that constrict one's consciousness. This is why I say causality is an illusion, because when one is OPEN minded, causes simply do not exist. What must be done, is done; end of story. The voice tells you to stop drinking; you stop drinking, end of story. The voice tells you to stop smoking or eating so much; you stop smoking or eating so much, end of story. The voice tells you to go to Africa; you go to Africa, end of story. No need to examine causes or reasons: Thy Will is done.

Dennis, you have an open mind, which of my experience, can only take an individual in one direction, and that is, truly beyond opinion into the absoluteness of their relationship with their unconditioned Self.

Is this it?Who I really am is the space in which life's events show up for me.Who I am being in any given moment is my response to what is showing up now.

My response can be 'of conditioning'.My response can be free of conditioning.

I would say it takes reasoning to deconstruct conditioning, therefore caused.

Pam: Dennis, you have an open mind, which of my experience, can only take an individual in one direction, and that is, truly beyond opinion into the absoluteness of their relationship with their unconditioned Self.

Is this it?Who I really am is the space in which life's events show up for me.Who I am being in any given moment is my response to what is showing up now.

My response can be 'of conditioning'.My response can be free of conditioning.

I would say it takes reasoning to deconstruct conditioning, therefore caused.

Who you are is not the space in which life's events show up for you, for life is not about space or "events." Life is the movement of your conscious awareness, a moment by moment by moment continuum of I Am.

Which means your movement of your pattern that is the pure awareness of YOU has nothing to do with your response to this movement; rather, it is this very responding, which is but an afterthought, that hinders the free flowing movement of the pure awareness of YOU. The personality called "Dennis" has no power to move anything. Life, which knows nothing of Dennis, but allows Dennis to be aware of Dennis, is the only moving [expanding] power, which is not a power of might, but of Word or Thought.

If you are responding, then you are always in your conditioned mind, for when you respond, you are comparing this with that, which is the activity of rearranging recalled events.

You say it takes reasoning to deconstruct conditioning, therefore caused, but when you reason your way to your deconstructed conditioning, when you have that moment of satori that reveals to you that form is emptiness and emptiness is form, can you see or hear or taste or smell or touch a cause of this realized emptiness? You cannot, which means that to apply a cause to the living of your life after the discovery of emptiness is to live in error, does it not?

You say it takes reasoning to deconstruct conditioning, therefore caused, but when you reason your way to your deconstructed conditioning, when you have that moment of satori that reveals to you that form is emptiness and emptiness is form, can you see or hear or taste or smell or touch a cause of this realized emptiness? You cannot, which means that to apply a cause to the living of your life after the discovery of emptiness is to live in error, does it not?

Sometimes I'm free and living isn't conceptually mediated or locked into a story.at those times I'm open to be the experience of humility, open to be the experience of delighted,open to be the experience of astonishment, open to be the experience of aghast etc..not self-conscious, not afraid.being here and having responses naturally.

sometimes I rise in the morning to face a task for that day and set it up conceptually as onerous, to be lived through, put up with, tolerated and get about like a piece of stiff cardboard in the face of it.

What I have to do then is deconstruct that story of the task.To grok the misconception in it.It's always a concern about a me.a cause.spotting the cause gets me free.Mind stills.

movingalways wrote:Who you are is not the space in which life's events show up for you, for life is not about space or "events." Life is the movement of your conscious awareness, a moment by moment by moment continuum of I Am.

Which means your movement of your pattern that is the pure awareness of YOU has nothing to do with your response to this movement; rather, it is this very responding, which is but an afterthought, that hinders the free flowing movement of the pure awareness of YOU. The personality called "Dennis" has no power to move anything. Life, which knows nothing of Dennis, but allows Dennis to be aware of Dennis, is the only moving [expanding] power, which is not a power of might, but of Word or Thought.

If you are responding, then you are always in your conditioned mind, for when you respond, you are comparing this with that, which is the activity of rearranging recalled events.

You say it takes reasoning to deconstruct conditioning, therefore caused, but when you reason your way to your deconstructed conditioning, when you have that moment of satori that reveals to you that form is emptiness and emptiness is form, can you see or hear or taste or smell or touch a cause of this realized emptiness? You cannot, which means that to apply a cause to the living of your life after the discovery of emptiness is to live in error, does it not?

You have a lot to say. You have a lot of nothing to say we'll miss you.

Sometimes I'm free and living isn't conceptually mediated or locked into a story.at those times I'm open to be the experience of humility, open to be the experience of delighted,open to be the experience of astonishment, open to be the experience of aghast etc..not self-conscious, not afraid.being here and having responses naturally.

sometimes I rise in the morning to face a task for that day and set it up conceptually as onerous, to be lived through, put up with, tolerated and get about like a piece of stiff cardboard in the face of it.

When one is wholly open, they are not astonished or humbled or delighted or aghast. These are human conditioned responses. A wholly open spirit is awake. No more, no less. What you are describing is the opening process, evidenced by your return to the onerous tasks that must be "lived through."

To be awake is to be liberated completely of "sometimes." To be and only be, the life you are.

What I have to do then is deconstruct that story of the task.To grok the misconception in it.It's always a concern about a me.a cause.spotting the cause gets me free.Mind stills.

And once you have stilled your mind by spotting this cause, does not your mind begin its looping causal dance again?

Is not true liberation to live free of the looping "why" and BE still? I do not know if you are fearful of perfect stillness, but it is my experience that most individuals are afraid of being a wholly open channel for the movement of the Perfectly Ordered Thoughts of the Infinite. When the Zen Master slaps his student, he wants the student to see that the body already knows how to live perfectly, wholly and completely. Right here, right now. Ask and ye shall receive. It is when the mind begins to look for a "why" that things get all muddled, and man finds himself in the position of having to deconstruct himself, over and over and over again. Think about it - is it not insane that man has to deconstruct who/what he is?

pam,I understand that phenomena is not self-established, is impermanent.sometimes it appears to be solid and I get 'in reaction'.I can deconstruct the gestalt and have emptiness restored.You have your way, I have mine.there is a cause why a situation looks solid.a mental trick or aberration.we both agree there is no reason why we have to be the effect of that cause, at least for very long.Don't tell me you are never affected.

Dennis Mahar wrote:pam,I understand that phenomena is not self-established, is impermanent.sometimes it appears to be solid and I get 'in reaction'.I can deconstruct the gestalt and have emptiness restored.You have your way, I have mine.there is a cause why a situation looks solid.a mental trick or aberration.we both agree there is no reason why we have to be the effect of that cause, at least for very long.Don't tell me you are never affected.

There is no mental trick as to why causes/conditions appear; they appear when they are given life by the interpreter. No life given to cause, no appearance of causality/conditionality. This is what the fire of reasoning reveals, taking you to the cause of the illusion of causality wherein both reasoning and cause-seeking are dropped.

I remain affected by my own ignorance of interpreting Life, but less today than yesterday, and as long as I am devoted to remaining awake, so it goes....

A poem by Meister Eckhart:

Practice

Practice is better than precept;but the practice and precept of eternal God is a counsel of perfection.If I wanted a teacher of theology, I should go for one to Paris,to its learned university.

However, if I came to ask about the perfect life,why then he could not tell me.Where then am I to turn?To pure and abstract nature, nowhere else:that can solve your anxious questions.

Why, good people, search among dead bones?Why not seek the living part that is directly connected with creation and that gives eternal life?The dead neither give nor take.

An angel seeking God as God would not anywhere for him except in a quiet, solitary creature.The essence of perfection lies in bearing poverty, misery, scorn, adversity and every hardship that befalls, willingly, gladly, freely, eagerly, calm and unmoved and persisting until death without a why.

When the Zen Master slaps his student, he wants the student to see that the body already knows how to live perfectly

the causal stream of matter.

When one is wholly open, they are not astonished or humbled or delighted or aghast. These are human conditioned responses

No.I'm talking about, for instance, when walking.Being the walking.Being the crunching gravel giving way underfoot.Being the delight of the birdsong heard in the distance.Being the experience of aghast at unwittingly stepping on and sqaushing a snail.Being the experience of humility in the conditions.Direct access that's not a head full of conceptual proliferation.

Quote:Food for thought/imagination gone wild.Conceptual proliferation refers to conceptualization of the world through the use of ever-expanding language and concepts.David's trying to take you another way.

Well, he gave up on me ages ago, and rightly so. No point in going over the same topics over and over again. There is not anything new he can say to me, that would change me.

To the actual experience of Still Mind.Proliferation stands out clear and obvious to Still Mind as distraction.

That would generally be the case, but not on this question, as we are speaking of the true nature of reality.It is the same as understanding a secondary truth, something like “everything is connected”, which people only understand properly once they have ”conceptually proliferated” . Some would think that “everything is connected” is a primary truth. Nope, it is secondary as it does not explain the why, it is merely an observation, and there is something else that underlies it, that causes it to be true.My truth re Time is a deeper primary truth, that explains why subsequent truths arise. Multiple secondary truths can relate back to this primary truth. It is not quite the unattainable absolute truth, as in the reason that Time expands is X.

“To me time is the space between events.Like past, present, future, sooner, later.Space is the distance between objects.near, far, here, there.”

The problem is that you cannot see what I see. You are looking at effects, not causes. What you and David are essentially saying is just live with A=A, live each moment without actively analysing causality as part of your experience. Causality relies on value systems, full of negatives and positives, and value systems cause the mind to be active.Your context shows up to me in this way:

We are like little kids who can't see their parents and want to know who their parents are and speculate who the parents might be.That is the 'unanswered question' we live with and gives rise to proliferation.

You are giving the parent role to TIME.You have substituted God for Time.

That is correct.

Can I enrol you in giving me an account of what it would mean for human beings to leave the 'unanswered question' open?

It would mean one has become sort of religious , and has lost the desire to see reality as it truly is, to see how everything fits together.

The desire to know reality to the deepest possible level has been subsumed by an aversion to a question that seems unanswerable and instead one replaces it with a faith that they know 100% that is it unanswerable, thus pointless, distracting and angst-causing.

I used the phrase angst-causing above. One benefit of leaving the unanswered question open is that one can develop the habit of ‘not questioning”, thus if questions to the best of their ability, then after learning that there seemed to be no available answer to this question, they then learn to cease even asking themselves the question. In which case there would be nothing to gain or lose by not having the question answered.

You just don’t accept that I’ve answered the question. Sorry I do. As the Standard Model of physics has holes, they have progressively added dark matter, then dark energy and now dark flow. They are all just descriptors of physical time that is newer and less complex (fewer layers of time-relativity) than standard energy, matter.

And I’ll throw this bit in for fun. It would also mean that guru types retain a form of unknown to keep followers confused, which leaves them open to the gurus influence:). If you leave something unanswered, the guru never passes their use-by-date. It is a bit the same as science not really wanting to know the truth of my Time theory, as that would result in lesser motivation to be a scientist.